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Saturday, January 22, 2011

november was my last blog - whoa have things changed

i can't believe m last blog on here was back in november. november feels like an eternity ago. so much has change. i finally shook that "cold" which was really actually allergies. a spark friend suggested it may be allergies. 2 days on aerius and all cleared up. i suffered for no reason. our fall came earlier this year and with it a ton of rain in september so i am guessing my mould and dust allergies were going nuts. at least i am cured and healthy!

back in december i also started toying with the idea of going vegetarian or significantly decreasing the amount of meat i eat. i had watched some documentaries on the food industry. i honestly have been avoiding them because i knew they would disturb me but one night simon was watching and i got sucked in. apparently it didn't change his view on food but momentarily but it has pushed me to really think about my diet and what i am feeding myself.

another spark friend who is also an ultra marathoner has also gone completely vegan and she has inspired me too look at my life and diet in such a new way. i am not sure i will ever go down the vegan road but it is nice to know there are endurance athletes and mainy professional athletes that not only survive but thrive on a vegan or vegetarian diet.

as i don't want to be cooking seperate meals at every meal for all members of the family i decided that when i can i will chose not to eat meat. in reality with shift work and social activities we only eat dinner together a couple of nights a week. so on nights i am solo or it is h and i, i have decided to be as meatless as possible. i am still eating eggs and dairy. i rarely eat fish. in the past couple of weeks i have only eaten tiny amounts of chicken twice. that is it for meat. i am honestly not missing it. it is forcing me to find different foods that are filling and have the protein i was getting from meat. i am using a lot of beans and i am filling up as much as possible on veggies.

as i seem to struggle with food and seem to focus normally on my odd small bad days i am really taking the time on what i did right with food in a day and i am logging that daily. focusing on the positive for this "half empty" girl has been a real mental struggle but super rewarding at the same time.

running has been going great lately. trying some new routes. running lots more miles. i had cut my miles back a ton last year and seemed to have constant hip and itband issues. i looked back at what i was doing when my running was GOOD. what st i was doing, what cross training i was doing, my weight.

well i was running more. averaging about 80 miles a month. last year my highest mileage month was june at 60. most others were 30-50.

i was doing hill runs and repeats. i am not doing them at all anymore. i will get on that.

i was also doing making the cut circuit training type workouts 2-3 times a week. these are full body workouts. this past year i have been focusing on heavy weights. bigger muscles but not good for running it seemed.

i weighed less. i weighed then about 127-130lbs. as of january 1, i was 145lbs. yikes. since january 1st though i am down to 141.5 lbs and i am looking to get back into the 130s and hopefully maintain there again. i have never seemed to be able to be 135ish though. i tend to be 140 or 130. weird?

this year i have 2 races i am doing for sure. i am doing the seattle rock n roll 1/2 at the end of june and the muddy buddy in august. besides that i am trying to find some other smaller races to do. still trying to figure out if i want to trail race or not. when my injury issues started it was the same time as trails. not sure it is related but i get a bad feeling in my gutt about it. i may just train on some trails for less structured hill work.